Wholesale player BICS deployed a Nokia SDN controller, seeking improvements to mobile routing and network performance by unlocking the potential for slicing local and roaming traffic.

BICS stated the customised SDN offered more than near-term benefits, by paving the way for longer-term 5G use cases including network slicing and bandwidth planning.

Rafael de Fermin, VP of network infrastructure at Nokia, Europe, asserted the SDN “will be a key component” for BICS, enabling it to “deliver next-generation 5G services”.

Network slicing capabilities will help BICS attract “enterprises looking to adapt 5G for advanced use cases” including IoT and M2M, he added.

Jorn Vercamert, VP products and solutions at BICS, added said deploying the SDN is a “future investment for when the industry fully moves to 5G and looks to deploy network slicing at scale”.